sardines

two summers ago in the uv jets of a swiss, august sunshine, i was lucky enough to be at the side of lake oeschinensee. having just googled how you spell it, a number of pictures sprung up reminding me how beautiful it was. in the gravel that littered the sides of the phenomenally cold glacier waters, max found an old rusty key. i was fascinated, what did it open? who did it belong to? how long had it been there? when it was time to leave, i pushed the key into a compartment in my bag for safe keeping.

it turns out the safe keeping was so safe, that i've only just found it.... but it's just the same as it ever was, around five cm long with a perfect oval segment to accompany the imperfect severed end where the actual key part  would have been. i realise now that there had never been a key part to it, as it's probably the key to an old sardine tin. yet despite this new found knowledge of it 'only being the key to a sardine tin', the appeal and mystery of max's amazing find was not lost.

sure. it's just a key to a picnic lunch some swiss people had on the identical spot that we happened to sit in a very long time ago - but as alan bennet once said 'life is like a box of sardines - we are all looking for the key'. well i've found my sardine key - it's definitely not the key to my entire life (for that would surely mean a short life), but it's allowed me to refind a lot of my memories of that trip and remember just how happy i was that summer.

i plan on keeping this old, rusted piece of junk for the rest of my life.


fact # 74
that week was one of the best of my life